The site covers 75 destinations, roughly half within the U.S. and half overseas, covering major cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Prague, and Edinburgh. NileGuide's emphasis is on trip planning, with suggestions for the trip itself, along with "see and do," "food," "lodging," and "nightlife" sections.

At this stage of the site's development, NileGuide does not offer the capability to actually book travel or reservations through the site, although the "food" section offers a one-button connection to OpenTable to book reservations.

Visitors to the site's front page see what the site claims is its unique niche: personalized travel recommendations from the site and its users; a custom trip itinerary; and the ability to print a custom guidebook/itinerary to bring with the user on his or her trip.

Thematically, NileGuide takes elements from a traditional guidebook as well as social networking sites and flashy Web 2.0 travel sites like Kayak.com. Once a user has identified a destination, an overview page brings up basic facts and figures, and suggests some activities, lodging based on the most popular or notorious items; the Beverly Hills Hotel, for example, features prominently on the Los Angeles overview page. On each tab (including lodging, food, and activities) a map displays the geographic relationship of items users can organize by various attributes, such as price. A Kayak-style slider, checkbox, and drop-down menus also dynamically add or weed out suggestions based on NileGuide selected criteria: restaurants can be selected by type of cuisine or neighborhood, for example, and users can slide the bar to determine the level of "strenuousness" they want from their activity.

Since the number of site destinations is relatively small, NileGuide has had to make some tradeoffs. For one, a destination like Yosemite is too far away to add to a San Francisco tab. But the site also tosses in a generous helping of suburban or day trip activities, Steinitz said; for example, the Napa/Sonoma wine country is part of the San Francisco tab, as is the London metropolitan area. Each Hawaiian island also rates its own destination.

From there, any reservations or suggestions may be added to a separate "trip planner" tab, where a user can add notes, reservation numbers, or other details. After he or she has finalized the trip, it can be printed out as a PDF or even made public, providing suggestions for other users that can be further refined.

According to Steinitz, "commodity" services such as car rental and airfare will be added later, probably in a June update. Right now, the emphasis is on discovery, the centerpiece of a good travel experience.

"The idea is to find the right balance of efficiency, information and the serendipity of travel," Steinitz said. "It shouldn't be like doing your taxes. Part of the fun is in finding things you didn't even think you were looking for."

Editor's Note:Although Steinitz said that the site had launched with about 80 destinations, a note sent to beta subscribers Monday night said the site served 75 destinations at launch.